November 18, 1893, Pope Leo XIII. issued an encyclical letter to all the prelates of the "Catholic world in communion with the Holy See, on the Study of Sacred Scripture." In this letter are many expressions worthy of note, to some of which we call the attention of our readers. The excerpts quoted below are from the translation given by the Catholic Mirror of January 6. He says many good things of the entire inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures, of the way in which Christ and his apostles used the Scriptures, and of the duty of studying them. But this study the pope confines to the schools, to the priests, and to the leaders in the "church" under the "guidance of the church." He says:—
It is certainly a great thing to have proved, explained, and elevated Catholic doctrine by a legitimate and learned interpretation of the Holy Bible, but another task remains, a task which is as laborious as it is important, that the whole authority of the Scripture may be established in as solid a manner as possible. This object cannot be entirely reached except by the proper and enduring guidance of the church.
Just how the Roman Church has established "the authority of the Scriptures" may be learned from her past history. For the Scriptures mean to Rome just what her traditions and interpretations make them. She does not and will not yield up the "infallible" errors of her doctrines and traditions for the infallible and unchangeable truth of God's word. However high she may hold the Scriptures in word, she holds tradition and the church of higher authority; for tradition, or the voice of the church, becomes the only true and authoritative interpreter of the Scriptures.
Rome thus puts herself in the place of the Holy Spirit, the only authorized interpreter of God's word, not through great dogmatical utterances or church councils, but to the individual heart which is open to receive the truth. "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit," says the apostle Paul; "for the Spirit searcheth all things; yea, the deep things of God." "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them [it matters not though taught by council or papal bull], because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth [discerneth] all things." 1 Cor. 2: 10, 14, 15. But the Spirit comes by simple faith, which is under control of no one, not even apostles. Gal. 3: 14; 2 Cor. 1: 24.
But to the proof that tradition is to the Roman Church equal to the Scriptures. In the fourth session of the Council of Trent, 1546, it was declared that the church "doth receive and reverence, with equal piety and veneration, all the books [including the Apocrypha], as well of the Old as of the New Testament, the same God being the author of both—and also the aforesaid traditions ["unwritten traditions"], pertaining both to faith and manners."
It further says of its canon of Scripture:—
Whoever shall not receive, as sacred and canonical, all those books and every part of them, as they are commonly read in the Catholic Church, and are contained in the old Vulgate Latin edition, or shall knowingly and deliberately despise the aforesaid traditions, LET HIM BE ACCURRED.
The same council placed the Latin Vulgate above the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. An authorized edition of the Vulgate was published in 1590, and declared authentic by Pope Sixtus V., the pope himself correcting the proofs. But this infallible standard of Scripture was found to be so faulty that it was called in, and another issued by Clement VIII. in 1592, accompanied by a similar infallible bull. However, all the copies could290not be called in; there is one copy in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, England, and one in the royal library at Cambridge. Dr. James compared the two authorized infallible and unalterable standards and found 2,000 variations, some of whole verses, and many others clearly and decidedly contradictory to each other.
The council thus speaks of the exercise of private judgment in the study of the Scriptures:—
In order to restrain petulant minds, the council further decrees that, in matters of faith and morals, and whatever relates to the maintenance of Christian doctrine, no one, confiding in his own judgment, shall dare to wrest the Sacred Scriptures to his own sense of them, contrary to that which has been held and still is held by holy mother church, whose right it is to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of Sacred Writ; or contrary to the unanimous [!!] consent of the Fathers, even though such interpretation should never be published. If any disobey, let him be denounced by the ordinances, and punished according to law.
Says an apostle of Jesus Christ, "Not that we have dominion [lordship] over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand," a personal faith—there is no other—in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the congregation of the index of prohibited books enacted by the Council of Trent, rule 4 is specific as to the use of the Bible. It reads:—
Inasmuch as it is manifest from experience that if the Holy Bible, translated into the vulgar [common] tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to everyone, the temerity of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it, it is, on this point, referred to the bishops, or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, permit the reading of the Bible translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety they apprehend will be augmented and not injured by it; and this permission they must have in writing. But if anyone shall have the presumption to read or possess it without such written permission, he shall not receive absolution until he have first delivered up such Bible to the ordinary.
Booksellers who disposed of such Bibles without written permission should forfeit the price of the books to the church and be subject to "such other penalties as the bishop shall judge proper."
Pope Pius VII. in 1816 condemned Bible societies and the free circulation of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. Leo XII. in 1824, Pius VIII. in 1829, and Gregory XVI. in 1832 and 1844 did the same. The bull of Pius VII., dated June 26, 1816, addressed to the Primate of Poland, relative to Bible societies, said:—
We have been truly shocked at this most crafty device [Bible societies], by which the very foundations of [the Roman Catholic] religion are undermined. . . . It is evident from experience that the Holy Scriptures, when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have through the temerity of men produced more harm than good.
Gregory XVI., May 8, 1844, in answering those who thought the Bible should be read, calls their claim an "audacious assertion," which was twice withered by sovereign pontiffs in the eighteenth century. Gregory concludes:—
Moreover, we confirm and renew the decrees recited above, delivered in former times by apostolic authority, against the publication, distribution, reading, and possession of books of the Holy Scriptures translated into the vulgar tongue.
Leo XIII. does not in anywise disagree with the above.
Thus it is that Rome has sought to deprive the flock of God of what the Great Shepherd designed to be their daily food. She would put it into the hands of the false shepherds, that they might "foul it with their feet," mix it with the poison of paganism, and give the wretched compound to the starving millions, and tell them it is the bread of life. And under Leo XIII. it will be no better. The rules of the Council of Trent are infallible with him; and while he talks in honeyed phrase of the beauties, benefits, and blessings which are found in God's word, he means that the common people shall taste its milk only after it has been strained through the coal sack of that tradition which has made void the commandments of God. Such may we expect when Rome rules here. May God help those who love his word to improve this time by hiding it in their hearts, that they may not in that time sin against him.